


Durch die Nacht

by joouheika



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M, Manga Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-02
Updated: 2014-04-02
Packaged: 2018-01-17 23:22:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1406392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joouheika/pseuds/joouheika
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been 2,000 years since they last met.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Durch die Nacht

**Author's Note:**

> for maggie, head of the church of eren, my lil sis and fellow rivaere trash comrade. fanfic of her comic idea for what if modern era levi meets past era eren.

Over ten something years of studying German and he’d still had difficulties following the directions to this place. 

These are some deep ass woods. Even the locals nearby weren’t all familiar with them. To be honest if it’d not been for the recent emerging rumors of a “titan” lurking within their midst these woods would have gone unnoticed for who knows how long. Left to remain as wild as they are.

Levi is used to outdoor trips; his parents and his employer are fond of them. It is because of that that Erwin has sent him. 

He’d have brought others along if they weren’t so put off by the fact that none of them know German, (this publishing company he works for is run by a bunch of Brits). He’d had brought even Hanji the only one who did know German, being German (and maybe they could decipher these shit directions). But they’re occupied elsewhere. They’d wanted to go but dinosaur bones that had “actually” been found in Mongolia were a little more riveting than a maybe “titan” that they weren’t even sure existed in the middle of maybe nowhere and Erwin had wanted a report on the dinosaurs too. Least for that he’d sent the photographers. For Levi he’d just sent… Levi. But doesn’t Levi prefer being solo? Is what Erwin had stated. More like Erwin just wanted him to get a lot of work done without using up a lot of manpower. What a pain. He was such a cheapass sometimes.

Maybe it is a good thing Hanji isn’t here, he’d not be able to take the usual chatter and if he had to deal with any bitching about the rain he’d have been more than livid.

It’s because of the rain that he even ventures _into_ the ruins.

Old and crumbling, surely not the safest place to be alone, at night, with no signal. Shit.

Levi is sure he can handle roughing it out in the woods a few nights if he has to (he’s readily packed and wearing a lot of bug spray, hand sanitizer in almost every pocket, key phrase is _has to_ ) he only intends to observe these ruins it is said a “titan” lives… but because of the rain and having not set up camp yet he’s been driven to take shelter in the ruins directly.

Until the rain stops he determines.

He’d thought.

Exploring the ruins, careful to avoid the patches where you could see the night sky (he’d come in the evening time, enough light to make it here, and enough starlight to venture even through the hanging branches of the trees, being so far from the city) to avoid rain from getting on him. When he stumbles upon what has to be a main room. Vast and empty aside from the steps that lead out and the mass of a giant statue that seems to be embedded in the adjacent wall.  


Levi falters his steps. Musing he’ll have to return to his pack he’d left in the room next to this, a small entry way that probably hadn’t had land rising up to it before, more a cubby for a guard to rest within… he’s a little disappointed.

This must be the titan.

A sharp eared figure of a sitting, resting soldier. Clad not even in armor, nor a shred of clothing, only the winding moss and vines of leaved shrubbery and green plant. Flowers. So many flowers. Before, it must have made for fearsome decoration, perhaps a god to be prayed to for victory in battle?

Whatever it is it is not the fearsome deity that had been spoken of in the towns he’d just crossed through.

The rain should end soon, is what he’d like.

He turns away, contemplating returning to his pack. Perhaps some food is in order when something strikes him as odd.

Levi turns back around.

Red.

There is a single red flower blooming up on this ancient titan.

Below near the ear.

Resting upon the back of the nape of the neck.

All the rest are blue and indigo, white and yellow. Of all the flowers, only one is red.

He does not know why but it’s a curious thing to him and he continues walking forth, reaching a hand out…

It’s impossible. The statue is far taller than he thought (not that he could reach it at the height he thought it was), the room bigger than he realised. He cannot reach it. No normal person could. He wonders if his sight is faltering in some manner for this confusion though a brief nuance of possible instinct occurs to him. 

Levi looks up upon the titan’s face.

More than the red flower upon the nape, the crimson blooming there- it strikes him as familiar. But without being able to see its eyes, either eroded away or never carved to begin with, sheltered by the mop of “hair” Levi doesn’t know. He also doesn’t know why it seems if only he could see this being’s eyes he would know.

Know them.

His knee bumps against a finger.

He’d kept walking until then but can advance no longer. If he does he’ll be stepping up onto the spread hands before him.

Rather than a god to be prayed to, it looks as if he be the one receiving a prayer, a plea.

Levi sets a hand, pressing fully a palm onto the tips of one of those fingers. Is he blessing it? He doesn’t even spare a smile to his own foolishness. Just- thinking, thinking, thinking- listening hard. But it is only his own pulse he feels- only-

Sharply.

The sound of rain has stopped.

But did the rain truly cease?

He uplifts his face, his vision, sharp and precise as the sudden quickening of his heart, as one thing settles in his mind.

_Danger._

It is looking at him.

It’d not had vision before, but glowing, gold to green is an eye, looking right at him.

Living.

Seeing.

And then-

 _It moves_.

Levi moves as well.

Fast.

Faster than he thought himself even capable.

He retreats as quickly as he can as vines snaps, earth is uprooted, and stone crumbles. 

He skids hard against the balls of his feet, refusing to show it his back. He must be quick. He must fly high. He must cut it before it can reach him.

He braces his knees, hands reaching toward the sides of his hips, prepared to grasp and withdraw what will be his salvation.

He grasps air.

Air he cannot propel himself through. He has no weapon and as such is not akin to one as he should be.

This sudden jarring contradiction that seems to exist in him is costing precious minutes. 

Snapping from the confusion, that he must do without when he’d had nothing from the start, why should he? What should he?

Levi jumps back, again, again, circling behind a pillar, hoping what’s left of the ceiling won’t collapse on him as the titan emerges from its false shell. The entirety of it steaming, the stone falls away, shattering like crystal upon the floor, the green upturned. It lifts its face to the ink dark and star bright sky and roars.

Levi protects his face by bringing up his arms as the debris and moisture of fallen rain whirl forth. 

Standing, then falling to its knees with but a step. The titan taxed from its awakening slumps forward. Falls. The sound of tearing, dripping. 

Is heard. 

Its flesh is melting away, leaving behind the white of bone.

But that is not all.

At the nape where the red flower had been, that single morning glory, is a person.

His hair almost as dark as the dissolving titan’s, his head tilted back, his face towards the heavens as a sudden breath is inhaled sharply. Like he has not taken a breath in a very long time. The strings of muscle that act as a blindfold fall from his revealed closed eyes. Hands emerge in a similar fashion, outreached and cupping up as the titan’s had been before it stood. Though so much destruction is the cost of his rebirth, this person looks serene, almost at peace amongst his own carnage.

The prayer he is held in.

Is for Levi.

That is what Levi feels.

Hears.

And so Levi moves once more.

Once more bringing a hand down, instinctively to reach for a blade that is not there. How he manages to scale the rubble without skinning a hand, or dirtying a knee, Levi almost wants to congratulate himself.

What he will do once he reaches the nape, once he reaches this person Levi doesn’t know, only that he must go.

This is what he must do.

He is saved having to decide else wise.

Gold to green eyes blink and open wide to gaze upon him, a wild gaze, stray and everything but strange. That last detail is what unnerves Levi the most.

Dangerous.

That is what these eyes are.

Vowing, swearing, praying, exalting, crying, destroying him- _eliminating him_ \- Levi cannot look upon them a second longer. He turns sharply on heel from where he once strived to reach too earnestly for the likes of him now (before), moving back further into the ruins, upon this up heaved ground, where he will go he doesn’t know. Into the dark (back), away, away from all this- but he cannot ignore it. What is cried out, echoing in this hollow tomb. In a voice more familiar than his own.

A word and then-

“-Levi!”

Again. Pained.

“-------- Levi!”

What that first word was Levi doesn’t know, only that he should have known, like so many things tonight-

The frantic beating he hears aside, within his ears, a desperation fills his vision as this person tears themselves out from the rest of the flesh that holds them though it pains them to do so, this premature motion since it continues to steam away, the flesh, it’ll be gone soon and yet this person must hurry, wants to hurry- to Levi’s side.  
This person, this being, running, stumbling, kneels before him, a fist over his heart. A salute.

What blood that almost spills from his open wounds, sizzle and crack away, steam rises from his flesh until the skin is healed anew.

More words Levi doesn’t know, more words he’s sure no one has known for hundreds of years now, tumble from this person- this boy’s mouth.

And then, suddenly finding the strength, or because he can no longer put that strength into the words, this boy- he’s yelling, sobbing, tears that want to come will not- and Levi finds himself disappointed in that, the lack of tears as the boy rises to his feet, stumbling towards him, reaching once more for him and staring directly, boldly, into his eyes- calling him- 

“-------- Levi!”

Levi convinces himself it has been this boy’s heartbeat all along he’s been hearing, not his own, though it thumps, thumps, stutters and trembles and collapses- as this boy does against him. Levi doesn’t allow him to fall completely as he cups his face in his hands and looks upon it truly. Wondering what it’d be like if the rain had fallen against his face, his skin, what it’d feel like to feel its heat moist against the blessing of his palms. He looks, into these eyes he’d wanted to see so much that the very earth had moved.

Was it that?

Had it been that?

If he’d not wished for such a thing would this boy have ever awakened?

Searching into them, how green they are, how beautiful. As wild as the woods. But they’d been gold before surely? At some point?

The eyes of a beast.

A monster.

Eyes he knows with certainty.

(His-)

That’s why.

Levi asks.

As harsh as the howling wind.

“Who the hell are you?”

\--

It’s much better than before.

Levi had had to tell Eren at least eight fucking times to slow the fuck down or he was going to choke.

(Eren did, a few times.)

At least now he tries to chew his food before swallowing and they can communicate better. After Levi had asked Eren who he was Eren had collapsed. Unsure if he was being punked or this really was the entity of some god, made mortal or some kind of shit like that Levi had given up and taken him home. Which had been a bigger hassle than it should have been given Eren had not been all that heavy. But it’d taken more hours than it should have to find his way out of the woods. The ruins had been flung a great deal everywhere and had changed the landscape. And all the while Eren did not wake (even when Levi had shut the car door, when he’d finally gotten to his bird shat on car, he’d shut it a little harder than necessary after heaving Eren into the back seat) which made the task more challenging than need be.

He would have brought him to a hospital to make sure his sudden fall to unconsciousness wasn’t serious but it’d be hell trying to get him medical treatment without having to leave him as some sort of missing person. He was about to bring him to a hospital, damn it all, as days went by and Eren (though he’d not know his name then) still did not wake but then with impeccable timing (the dinosaur had been the hoax, shocking) Hanji had been available and had proceeded to refuse to be fooled anymore! But gave Eren a look over anyway and determined he’d passed out from hunger. All the while giving Levi some choice winking and nudging, having found their patient was not dying so of course this was an opportune moment to tease him. It’d cost Hanji another pair of glasses just before the door was slammed on their way out.

Hunger as the cause was indeed true, for only a few hours later from Hanji’s visit did Eren wake and his stomach had been annoyingly loud and he proceeded to eat everything in the sad flat Levi was currently staying in (not his actual residence) currently for his work in Germany. It was not much, but he hadn't needed much as one frugal (less stingy than Erwin mind you) person. Levi had found a giant package of frozen pan fried sausages and had cooked them all when it seemed Eren could not be sated. He would have bought more food but it was the dead of the night and this wasn’t some busy bustling city like Düsseldorf where he could just go out at near any hour and something was bound to be open. Eren had eaten them all. Looking apologetic all the while, Levi first at thought because of his poor cooking skills (he’d burnt the first few batches) but later learning more on Eren’s character (along with his name, that Eren had assumed he already knew) it was because Eren didn’t want to eat all of Levi’s food (even though he was sure these sausages had been here even before he moved in).

After some time, and a lot of terrible sign language, Eren was able to pick up modern speech better. Levi is actually rather impressed (being a linguist) Eren boasts his friend Mikasa could take the credit, she’d taught him some of her mother’s tongue when they were kids. And this language Levi spoke was much more like the one Eren spoke than some of what Mikasa had taught him.

What Levi learns is Eren had been sleeping in that titan for a very long time, and came from an era where humans had been ruled by these titans (like the one he’d been trapped in… he’d been a bit hesitant on these details, from the language barrier or what else Levi doesn’t know) and had been fighting against them in hopes of becoming free. They’d lived behind walls. Their clothes had been similar to some of the clothes of today, but their technology was rather limited. And Eren had known someone like Levi also named Levi that time very long ago…

How long ago exactly…

Levi shows Eren the morning paper (determining they had printing in Eren’s era too when Eren takes it without confusion) but Eren of course is unable to read the symbols, when Levi tells Eren the headlines and date, Eren pauses and suddenly jumping up-

“Two thousand!”

“What? Don’t shout.”

“Sorry sir. It’s been about two thousand years so…”

Eren is taking a rather long time to calculate.

They’re sitting at the wobbly dinner table. Eren has more sausages to eat (why he likes them so much, Levi’s look is more than a little sour, Eren had said it was because it was the first thing he’d eaten on living again and that they’d been so good the ones he’d cooked…) only this time Eren also has a fried egg and some toast to go along with it. All aside the toast is a little burnt. Though the toast is slathered in butter, maybe too much. But if Eren hasn’t eaten in more than a thousand years Levi think it’s long overdue. The boy is rather skinny anyway.

His ears turn red when Levi tells him to hurry up already. Before taking a sip of his tea and picking the paper up. Scanning over the headline articles for himself this time. Levi glances over the more than boring headlines to Eren who’s still counting. His expression thoughtful, his brow furrowed.

“If that is the year then… I am now… 2,015 years old Mr Levi.”

Levi doesn’t choke on his tea.

But Eren still looks alarmed on the sudden pause of all movement, as Levi had almost been in mid sip.

Eren picks at his egg, the yolk running.

“…if you consider that sir, perhaps it’s not me but you who should be saying mister-”

Eren yelps as Levi sharply kicks his shin under the table.

Eren should be grateful that’s all it is and that’s all Levi does aside from affix him with a murderously foul glare and-

“Go on then. Say my name without a prefix you shitty brat.”

Though to Levi that might as well had already been. Back where they’d first met. And Levi had not a clue what it was that Eren had called out before his name. It seems it was attached. Levi had figured it was the word “mister” but he’s having doubts now. He’s yet to ask Eren what it was-

Eren’s entire face is red, not just his ears.

His egg is completely smashed to bits and it appears as if he’s undergoing some form of belated midlife crisis. Even at over two thousand years old he still looks far too young to be having such a thing.

“Le-Lev… L-L-Le-“

Some more unsuccessful stuttering before Eren apologises and he shoves an entire sausage in his mouth as excuse to not delve upon the topic any longer. Levi would complain of his manners but he’s lounging with his hands on the table. A clean table, minus the crumbs, and bits of egg on Eren’s side that Levi is going to have to have Eren clean; Eren cleans rather his empty flat while Levi is out in compensation for the food Levi tells him, though it’s more to give Eren something to do while he’s away. It’s not long. Typically Levi has to redo most of the cleaning when he returns…

The paper is not as interesting as Eren.

Who, along with the now completely ruined ruins Erwin is going to want to hear about some time. Some more. Eren is wearing some of Erwin’s spare clothes. Levi had sealed and shipped Eren’s clothes (much to Eren’s displeasure) to his boss, to shut him up for a bit on his findings. Some of Erwin’s spare clothes had been in the equipment Levi had brought along. He always needed to be prepared and while Erwin was the least from what could be called a scatterbrain, he sometimes got too invested in his work that things like bathing and changing his clothes was a chore and needed to be reminded of him. Something Levi very much did, driving the most compelling argument when he brought clothes to be changed into and the promise of a very painful assistance, should Erwin neglect his hygiene in Levi’s presence any longer.

They are clothes much too big for Eren but they fit better than if Eren had tried to wear any of Levi’s clothes. Levi has been meaning to buy Eren clothes that would actually fit him but between feeding him (apparently sleeping over two thousand years meant you ate more than a pregnant woman, or Sasha he’d heard Eren murmur worriedly) and helping him learn the modern tongue, he’d not been out all too much. He is on a budget too… he’d like to return home for a bit before dealing with work. Dealing with any of this.

He looks up from the paper he’s not reading to Eren who’s refilling his now empty tea cup.

Eren refills his own (only enough now for half a cup) and places the pot down.

Though his eggs have been pulverized he will still eat them. Resumes.

A good boy.

“Eren.”

Eren looks up dutifully, naturally.

“What is it sir?”

He could ask him now.

What that word had been.

What Eren had called out before his name.

Levi looks into Eren’s green eyes, their gaze does not waver, does not falter.

Levi sips his tea.

Says-

“Don’t bother to drink the tea. It’s cold now.”

He starts to rise with the intention to make a fresh pot.

That gaze still on him, and his every move, searching, thinking.

“Don’t trouble yourself. I shall make it.”

Eren reaches for the pot and takes it over with him as he gets up, to the stove. Levi hopes Eren remembers what he’d taught him about the stove (Eren had been very impressed, they didn’t have to build a fire this way!) and is about to get up and see if the older than he is young boy is on the verge of burning the whole building down, when he sees Eren rummaging through the cabinet. Pulling down the familiar tin of Ceylon, opening it and almost shyly inhaling its scent- more pleased on what he smells than his first breath of air.

He sees Eren mouth that word and then,

His name.

Eren turns around sharply from hearing the harsh clink of china. A cup had almost been broken but Levi had caught it. Eren doesn’t seem at all surprised by Levi’s fast reflexes, merely the circumstance that had made the cup almost fall in the first place. Levi had banged his knee against the table, trying to get up from his chair too quickly.

Eren’s look is that of continued alarm.

“Are you alright sir? Is it your leg again?”

Upon Levi’s confusion.

Eren realises his error quickly and reddens.

Levi isn’t sure how he feels about that but it’s more than a little annoyed.

\--

Levi manages to convince Erwin to allow him not only for some time off but to allow him to return home. When he does eventually return to work he insists it be work he can do from his home office, none of which Erwin is pleased about, but when Levi insists it’s for the sake of those mysterious clothes from the ruins he’d sent Erwin, his boss relents.

Before he leaves back for France he stops by the ruins that Hanji is now picking over, amazed that there had been something there. Whether this mass chaos was supernatural, manmade, or mother nature, it was all very interesting. Levi doesn’t mention Eren but Hanji does, with a wink, perhaps it’d been the work of two people wanting to cause curiosity? Hadn’t Levi found some homeless boy here a little while ago? Levi had sighed and crossed his arms, not seeing it fit to reply. Only replying to questions (and barely) of that night…

Hanji is intrigued and will surely draw some conclusions once Erwin let’s them in on the loop but until then-

Levi wants to know for himself.

Who he was.

Was he really as Eren thought, someone that Eren had known from long ago?

Was it really because of him that Eren had awakened?

And most of all, why had Eren been sleeping there in the first place?

That was a question Eren himself could not answer, and Levi could tell it was something Eren wasn’t hiding- he just truly did not know. That was why he needed for Levi to remember what had happened- during that time before his slumber- why had he survived until now? Only Levi could tell him.

But Levi doesn’t know either.

Aside from those urges in the ruins, no memory is concrete. No memory comes to him. He does know Eren but he doesn’t truly recall their time together if he really is this person Eren says he was.

Perhaps it is coincidence, and this person exists elsewhere, that that Levi of before is not him, that that Levi’s reincarnation is someone Eren has yet to meet… when he confides in Eren these thoughts Eren tells him as he thinks, that the Levi before him is exactly as he’d been-

Their name.

Their manner.

Their scent.

All the same.

He does not doubt, he truly believes with all his heart that the Levi he is now is the Levi Eren had known reborn.

Levi finds himself hating it.

If he is that Levi of before why can’t he remember? Why did he meet Eren if not to relieve him of this other sleep- known as ignorance?

He finds himself loathing, irritated, and jealous.

The person Eren sees is not him but-

Levi takes Eren home with him.

They travel along the coast so Eren can see the sea. He’d longed so much to see it that when he does he is only fifteen of all the years he’s lived. Curious on every little thing. Levi has to remind him more than once to put on sunscreen before going out into the sun.

Eren loves it all, the salt, the fish, the cry of the gulls, the sand and rocks and wind.

Out of everything in this vast world he tells Levi it is the sea he had longed to see.

Rather he longed to see it with his friends, his family, his comrades, but because he cannot- then in their place- the hand he held out to Levi then hadn’t been forlorn nor lost in this foreign age. It barely dawns on Levi that it must be overwhelming at times, all these new sights, all these unfamiliar places, this disjointed time, but through it all Eren has accepted it because finally for the first time he is outside of those walls. Walls, Levi finds in the end he can only imagine though once, supposedly he too had reviled them, detested them.

He had taken that hand and it was then he knew as Eren kicked up the salty water about them, pulling Levi with him in a haggard dash about the water, about this new place to him. The breath stolen from him and what laughter he could not hear over those gulls, the wind, that rapid beating of his own pulse he’d denied in the ruins- that rather than the warmth of the sun (something that’d not been too familiar how long ago), it was this hand that he knew most of all. Knows.

(A hundred or more bite marks it had to have been, upon this hand that night he-)

When Eren’s voice fades and he regains that breath, as he dared not draw them out too far into the water having explored a grand deal of the coast that first day- as night crept upon them like it always did. Levi finds it is not within the hour of twilight, nor the crimson of dusk though befitting is it to stain and beseech all it touches- it is not that that Eren looks the most natural in, but the dark that comes after.

In the dark of night even if it had only been for a moment, a long awaited moment, Eren’s eyes had flashed from green to gold, brighter than any star but just as unreachable. They had met within the night and it is within the night that Eren feels the most real.

This would remain true for every day that came and went, and every night as well.

While they travel Levi purchases better fitting clothes for Eren. Some of which he has to teach Eren to wear, some of which Eren refused (rabbits printed on his sleep wear? Do boys really wear such a thing in this day and age?) but must relent on hearing Levi’s slight chuckle, and then the swift promise of punishment if he didn’t be grateful for the clothes he was bought. Too much perhaps of bright, soft colour. Levi prefers dark colours himself but for Eren he thought that too morose, too… old. He cannot get it wrapped around his mind that Eren is over two thousand years old- he had been sleeping that whole while after all, he had not lived those years to wisdom and disappointment. He still has a life ahead of him.

Levi can’t help but think that is why he is going to these lengths, trying to recover a memory he isn’t sure he is in possession of to begin with, besides his own curiosity- somehow he has factored self gratification into this. If it is for the sake of this young boy’s future- if it somehow brings youth back to his own future- his unchanging present-

Then it’s not bad.

Not bad at all.

\--

When they finally reached his home (given to him by his deceased grandparents’ on his father’s side) Eren had been amazed at all the ordinate furniture and architect. His grandmother had been a collector even before the war, he’d explained, as Eren ran up and down the stairs, marveling at the designs, the carpeting, the paintings, and most of all the books. Embarrassed to have to be told to slow down, as Levi told him while some of what is in this home isn’t as old as Eren it’s surely far older than Levi.

Eren had learned some of the modern text and wanted to keep improving it. With their traveling from the coast over, Eren is content as Levi sorts out work matters, to hole up in the library and better his reading skills.

It doesn’t take long, from books of lore, to history, current news, modern medicine, science and art, music and animals, food and fashion. Eren almost reads Levi’s grandfather’s old office out of everything. Everything in German that is. When Levi suggests Eren learn French Eren stutters he will not refuse if it’s an order. More than a little proud at his accomplishments, he mentions his friend Armin would have read everything in less than half the time it took him.

When they go out to town (a rather small one it is), neighbors and shop keepers who remember Levi as a boy marvel that they didn’t know he had a younger brother? A son? A distant relative he tells them. On his mother’s side. No one likes to talk about his mother’s side of the family so the questions are quick to stop. 

When they return, Levi sighs as he tightly kicks the door shut behind him. The bags of groceries in arm are taken by Eren who has already put his bags away. Eren proposes that he will cook tonight. The stew he makes is much warmer than is suitable for the weather but Levi can’t complain, Eren had been excited to make it with the fish they’d bought at the market. And his kitchen isn’t burnt down, not that he’d expected that of Eren at this point.

After dinner, Eren is making an attempt at reading the paper despite not knowing any French.

His efforts are more than laughable as he tries to read to Levi what he thinks it says. As he reads the paper Levi goes over the mail Erwin has sent him. Sharing in on the lemonade Eren has been sipping. A light scowl at how sweet it is.

Late evening comes, and Eren bids him good night before retiring to the room Levi had given him. The one Levi used to sleep in as a child when he’d only been visiting.

Levi retires to his own quarters, settles down in his bed.

More tossing and turning than he’s used to and cares for, especially of himself.

Sleep will not come to him.

Rain like that night he’d met Eren is pounding on his windows. He gets up to shut the drapes. He’ll return to his bed and sleep soundly now he tells himself. 

He does not do so.

Instead he leaves his room, walking quietly through the dark hall as if this not be his own home, pausing before Eren’s door. He should knock. He doesn’t.

Within the room the drapes are flung back here as well. Eren stirs as Levi closes them.

“Is it that time already… sir?”

“What time would that be Eren?”

Eren blinks and realises his mistake.

He sees Levi shiver and draws back his blankets.

“Please.”

Is all Eren says.

Levi’s reply is his cold feet on Eren’s ankles as he settles in beside him, much better than a kick.

When Levi deems he’s not getting enough blanket that belated and inevitable kick arrives, though not as hard as it could be.

“Are your joints stiffer than usual from the cold?”

Should be.

Eren can’t see Levi’s scowl in the dark but can hear it.

“Shut the fuck up and sleep. For someone who’s over two thousand years old you sure act like a shitty brat.”

Levi rolls over onto his side, his back facing Eren and that’s the end of that. Eren settles his head against the pillow, hands folded over his stomach and closes his eyes. If sleep will come to the both of them in the now darker dark that would be almost too blissful.

\--

He hears him.

Levi hears as Eren struggles for breath, a heavy sob and the choking choking choking as he gasps for air. Alarmed, Levi rises immediately. Leaning over Eren, a motion ably made with haste as he’d turned towards the boy in his sleep.

He takes him by the shoulders and shakes him, eyes adjusting to the dark of continued night as he calls Eren’s name what must have been over a dozen times until he sees Eren’s eyes flicker open almost painfully, frantically scanning about the empty space above Levi’s shoulder before settling upon his face. He manages to regain his breath, as it steadies out- he recognises Levi, sees him-

The smile Eren bestows him for waking him from his bad dream makes his chest clench, tightly as Eren’s hands fold over and cup at the back of his head, his fingers scaping up to tangle in the locks above the undercut, it is a longing, relieved expression. Much akin to the one Eren had made when Levi had cupped his face, wondering where the tears were. Why had he expected them?

(Because Eren is always crying, and it had been most often as of late for his sake- he’d thought for sure then, when they met again-)

Eren says something, murmurs it sadly and Levi wonders has be managed to riddle out Eren’s old tongue or did Eren not realise he was speaking the modern tongue despite that the Levi he sees now is not the Levi he knows of before.

Levi can’t decide which it is, only that Eren delivers a kiss with it.

“I knew you’d come to wake me up… you always do…”

And that those are the words he must have said upon first waking. In the woods.

The kiss is not gentle like his words, when Eren kisses him it is rough, and hungry, starving as Eren had been during that long sleep, and now that he is finally awake again- Levi answers in turn, not daring say anything now but Eren’s name unless he is found out, caught. He’s not certain if he’s a fake, another life, a fool, another chance, but he knows with certainty he is a liar, but if his lie allows Eren to draw himself closer to him, his hands now clutching at his shoulders as his mouth opens up wider with the sweetest of gasps as Levi trails his touch across Eren’s back to his hips to grip and clutch at his ass as he presses his hands past the waistline of Eren’s pants, causing the boy to grind against him then-

Eren moans.

Levi pushes Eren back down against the mattress, leaving Eren’s mouth swollen so the futile questions he asks Levi about the mission? About the others? About anything, unrelenting to hear nothing other than another moan or sigh that could be answered easily with a kiss to his throat or bite at his breast, a nip to his belly, Levi does not, cannot answer.

After pushing up Eren’s shirt so much, Eren finally takes the hint and peels it off, a remedial distraction as Levi pulls down his pants, kissing and sucking at his inner thighs before taking Eren’s erection in hand, a grip he’d had on his blades had they been present that night. He guides it to his mouth, sucking as hard on the tip as Eren had to the bottom of his lip only moments before. He works his way down Eren’s cock as quickly as he’d trailed down his body, fingers surely leaving bruises where he still grips and fondles at Eren’s ass with his other hand. Eren is more out of breath than he, a breath that hitches incredulously when the tip of his cock brushes the back of Levi’s throat. Levi wishes he could see it better, surely the dip of Eren’s sweaty brow, his flushed face, his parted lips. Levi sucks on him harshly, intent that he should come, but even as Eren arches his hips, the breath Levi had been worried he’d not regained strangled out from him again, he doesn’t and that-

Levi pulls his mouth from between Eren’s legs, climbing back up to Eren’s mouth, pressing his tongue in and out, sucking at Eren’s tongue, his bottom lip, biting at it as Eren does in turn, though with less ferocity as when he’d first woke. His body is trembling but his hands are sturdy, locked in the rake of his nails creating a bloody path on Levi’s shoulder blades as he can’t exactly decide where he should thrust his hips, where Levi will allow him now, though he wants wants wants-

Eren wants his Levi.

The one he knew of before.

The one he sees now.

It twists low in Levi’s gut, along his own cock, the pain, how long had he been waiting for this knife? It must have been ages now, surely if he had been what Eren desires he’d still have felt this way, he’s always felt this way. Unable to escape Eren’s appraising, adoring, expectant gaze. It’s rendered him empty like he’d never been before, and filled him back up again, like heat of brimstone, of anger, denial and desire. It is a look he glimpsed upon and then cultivated, coveted for himself. He cannot escape.

Eren cannot escape.

Levi cannot bear the gaze any longer.

It is not for him.

He flips Eren over onto his hands and knees, removing his own clothes, he should have prepared him better, he should have brought something to make this easier, but it hasn’t been easy for him. These days, these months, (these years) and he almost comes alone from the sound of Eren’s pained gasp as he enters him, it feels both good and wrong as he does so. He’s always wanted to refrain from unnecessary cruelty when it comes to Eren after spilling so much of his blood already, but his body betrays him as he arches over Eren, pressing himself inside, deeper and deeper, tearing, blood slicking his entry and holding, blood slides out from around his cock on every thrust as it does across his back, along with sweat. Sweat from them both. Disgusting. Eren is clutching on the bedding so tightly his knuckles are white, the blood he’d scraped from Levi earlier leaves marks on the sheets.

Even if it must hurt it must also feel good. Eren is saying it- that word again, and his name, loudly, moaning, on every thrust, every touch and tilt of his hips as Levi drives himself into him, his chest pressed against Eren’s shoulder blades and his mouth at the back of Eren’s neck, biting until there’s blood there too and he can taste it, he shudders and grunts.

Even though he told himself he couldn’t look at Eren’s face any longer, he wants to, he wants to see it as badly as he wants to come inside him. Surely from the sound of Eren’s cries there are tears now. Surely with how frantically, desperately he’s panting, sobbing, moaning- _Corporal, Corporal, Corporal Levi, ah, Corporal, Levi_ \- as he arches into him, as he tries to twist and look back at him, his muscles straining, his whole body using its entire effort to press against him then-

He tries to lick it up, the blood that’s spilling from the nape of the back of Eren’s neck, he’d bit far too hard, though he sucks at the pulsing wound, it still drips, thick and splattered, almost like a flower onto the sheets. He’ll have to bleach or burn the bedding come morning (like he always-) but it’s a task in the back of his mind as Eren lets out a needy whine. He’s pressing hard upon his hands, his knees and toes, arching back- Levi hasn’t given him what he wants and each time Levi tries to draw back out Eren forces him back in, saliva dripping from his gasping mouth from the exertion, mixing onto the blood on the sheets as he asks, begs _please_ just this once-

“Levi.”

Levi comes hard. Hands clutching upon both thighs as he squeezes them, lifting, holding Eren against him, by them. Thick semen and blood within Eren now, when Levi flips Eren over and bends to take his cock into his mouth once again this time Eren gives Levi what _he_ wants. Eren is too tired to look in anything but vague disbelief as Levi swallows, licks his lips and lies aside him. Against Eren. Eren drawing Levi to him as he settles onto his back more comfortably. Pressing their sweaty brows to each other’s as Eren says to him, almost laughing, too happy-

“That was the first time you came inside me sir.”

He strokes Levi’s cheek.

“After so many times of denying me that I’d thought you’d never.”

Levi takes that hand and kisses the fingers, the knuckles.

Finally allowing himself to say something other than Eren’s name.

It is the old tongue, the language of over two thousand years ago.

“It’s gross. Don’t you feel dirty? You’re not such a good boy after all. But I knew that.”

He had refrained from ever coming inside Eren for this reason, the other reason being Eren had still been a child- even though now he is still-

Eren starts at Levi’s resentful and bemused expression. Anyone else who saw it would not deem it bemused at all.

Levi continues.

“Ain’t that fucking special, in order to regain my memories of my past life I had to fuck you. I remember I’d been hoping the next time we’d meet I could grow old with you, but it looks like I’ve already done that part without you.”

Eren is frowning at him, the visage of a scowl forming.

“What are you saying Corporal Levi? You are only thirty years of age! While _I_ am over two thousand years old! We’ve spoke of this before-”

Instead of kicking Eren’s shin again Levi twists his ear, if he could become hard again so quickly he would from the sound of Eren’s sharp pained gasp.

“You’ve not aged a day since that night I told you to hide Eren. You’re still just a brat.”

“A brat… I will give you that sir, but I am a child no longer.”

For such an insolent look Levi should have twisted Eren’s ear _off_ it’d grow back wouldn’t it? But there’s already enough blood on the sheets. All his fucking fault. The self loathing is only momentary this time, not like the acid jealously he’d had to endure before he’d regained his memory.

Eren flinches under how gentle his hand is now as it strokes through Eren’s dark hair, thoughtfully. He leans into Levi’s touch, drawing himself closer to Levi, folding his arms over his shoulders as he presses a kiss to Levi’s throat, his cheek, then his mouth, once, twice, before opening it and Levi is content to let Eren taste himself, to hell with talking, this is what he wanted and they could sleep and maybe this would be a dream and he’ll wake with the same foggy recollection of maybe and what ifs. But even that would be fine, for how closely Eren holds him now.

But when Eren pulls back, he is looking at him, expectantly.

It’s been so hard denying Eren what he wants, and how often and how long Levi has done so.

“That night,”

And Levi is not speaking of the night they’d met in this era.

But that night they’d been separated so long ago, it has been 2,000 years since.

He tells him-

He’d told Eren to hide.

It was not in Eren to not fight so Levi had explicitly ordered it. On behalf and for the sake of humanity’s future, for the survival of the Recon Corps. Eren must not fight in this battle. The Armored and Colossal Titans had returned to the walls and had come to tear them down. They wanted to make it to Sina but the Recon Corps would not allow that. If it’d been a suicide mission they’d been sent on, if they truly thought they would have victory that day, Levi doesn’t know.

What he does know is he’d not wanted Eren to risk his life when Levi and the others were sufficient this time. If Eren died fighting these traitors they’d have no one to quickly repair the wall, if even that.

That and-

It’d been Levi’s selfishness as well.

If Eren were to die it’d be by his hand, no one else’s.

He’d wanted to protect him.

He did.

The Armored and Colossal titans had been defeated, unable to keep them alive without sacrifices they could not make this time- they’d been killed. But because of that more mysteries had sprung up, hoping to dissuade them, defeat them, a thousand and more questions needed answers, none of these Levi can give to Eren and Eren to Levi likewise. But he has one answer, to one question. And it is what happened that night.

But even that seems half done, half made, half known.

He’d gone back after the battle was over to tell Eren it was alright now to stop hiding but to his astonishment Eren had transformed. To fight, it appeared at that time not with the titans that seeped through the ever worrying breech in the wall, (maybe he had been, maybe that’s why he’d originally transformed) but with an odd titan, it’d been covered in fur, hair, like an ape. Rather tall.

It had a most interesting face.

An intelligent face.

Levi had not engaged in battle with it.

Eren’s titan form had been sitting just as he’d found it in the present.

That ape titan had had a hand over his head, not to crush it but _to bless it_ , what he’d done to Eren Levi didn’t know that either. Only, the ape titan had placed Eren in front of the breech in Wall Maria and had done something- something to cause Eren to finally be able to consume the opening in crystal. The ape titan had sauntered off as soon as Eren’s titan’s form had closed its eyes and the crystal started to appear.

Levi had near used up the rest of the gas in his 3d maneuver gear to bring himself, as quick as he did, to the nape of the neck, hoping to cut Eren out before he is trapped inside. How he knew this with certainty, it’d been instinct. But he’d been too late, the crystal had sealed the wall and had steadily sealed Eren away though the nape of the neck was the last place where the crystal formed, too unlike how that girl had done. This was a method foul and not caused by Eren himself but that irregular.

That irregular Levi had thought was long gone even as he desperately hacked away at the crystal, hoping to cut cut cut, but he doesn’t, never did. One of the things he’d thought before he’d regained his memory is that red flower had been because he’d killed Eren. If he’d been the soldier Eren had said he was, if he’d been in charge of looking after Eren, who’d it’d been like plucking needles from to reveal that he’d been a titan (it’d been blurted out, one night, when Eren had worriedly asked Levi if he was not going to see him to bed like always, if he was not going to chain him down as he should?) then it was expected of him. To end Eren’s life, to have done so, it would have made sense. And perhaps Eren had turned into a titan to heal his wounds that Levi had inflicted…

The red flower had not been for Eren’s blood.

It had been for Levi’s.

That night, that ape titan killed him. Crushed him against his own cuts into the crystal that’d done nothing but render his gear more useless.

How this world came to be and why they are here now.

Neither of them know.

However.

Eren stretches up, rising to draw back the drapes. Levi flinches back, blinking against the bright morning light.

There is nothing aside from that legend in the town by the deep woods Eren had been sleeping in, that indicate anything of the past they know. Eren had read all he could on the history of this world, and though there was surely much he did not know and Levi likewise despite his profession and having been born into this era- how sad sometimes Eren’s face would get, just as elated and proud it could become when he read those tomes of what had been that had been recorded in this world. Searching for evidence of the one he was from, finding none though he read about strife, desolation and horrors mankind continued to inflict upon itself. He read of that, such records of a long ago not as long ago as his, but just as sorrowful.

There was hope as well.

The comfort of that made it so no matter what, they would share their meals together, go out into the town, look out across the coast, gaze upon the blue sky and think, feel, though their slumber is over, their dreams are not.

It has not faded, it has not disappeared come the dawn when they have finally left the night.

Eren turns to Levi-

“You did your duty, as I did mine.”

Says to him, against such bright light. Looking as if he is unreal, so much that Levi too rises.

Reaching Eren to lay a hand at the back of his neck to confirm with touch.

Real.

Alive.

The both of them.

\--

Levi is indeed a liar.

He never follows up with Erwin, making excuses every year, he retires as quickly as possible. Too early everyone says, especially when he doesn’t look at all his age.  


He spends as much time as he can with Eren, who eventually learns French (his accent atrocious, but Levi adores it more than he bears to ever admit. To anyone.) While the house had been fine with its decorative furniture and original paintings, the yard has much to offer. They spend a good deal renovating it. Levi hates dirt though he has tolerated it on so many camping trips. Most of the work is done by Eren who is determined at the very least a few rose bushes can make their home here. As years past, more flowers, all different sorts of flowers are made to bloom. Vegetables too, an apple tree and a pear tree. Strawberries along the ledges of the windows. All sorts of herbs and a few spices. The warm stew Eren would make is improved upon and they visit a new beach with every summer.

Levi never relents on allowing Eren to wear dark clothes(it isn’t much of a problem in the winter, as Eren’s body temperature is unusually naturally high) and Eren is certain if Levi were to wear colours other than dark ones he really wouldn’t look his age. He says this for years. Even after they’ve sold their house in France, said good bye to their garden and bought another in Germany. Near the woods where they’d been reunited. Persists on it when Levi finds it hard to walk on those rainy days. Knows for sure it must be when Eren has to take his hand when they ascend or descend the steps into the market or out of the theatre. Levi admits, he loves white, the purity and cleanliness of it, his shirts were most often white. But more than he it is Eren whom it suits the most. Eren takes it as praise and will not accept.  


They cultivate a new garden at their new home. This one has no flowers, only the assortment of vegetables, a plum tree and strawberries, all those herbs, many to serve as medicine for his leg and age, spices that he’s having trouble tasting now. And much more. So they don’t always have to go to the market, so Eren can stay as close as possible. Eventually he’ll grow flowers again, Eren tells him.

But he still hasn’t bothered to buy any flowers.

Levi is moody about it, thinks it’s unbefitting.

Considering the garden they once had.

They would have stayed in that house of Levi’s until the end of their days. It is what they had wanted but it could not be. Their time together grew and Levi aged as he’d said he’d been doing but time had no effect on Eren. They thought perhaps its going was slow but as the years flew by, Eren’s youth and vigor did not. Levi had been right, that that he’d wished for in the world before (that they spoke of even now, wondering on even now) had been robbed of him by a mystery. As his hair greyed and every step turned to pain, and their unfamiliar neighbors greeted them, commenting how nice it was to have such a caring grandson to push him about in his wheelchair (on days he’s particularly weak), Levi knew Eren would not change.

Cannot age.

It’d been morning when he’d set out but because he could not move quickly and because his wits were leaving him, he’d gotten lost. He’d searched long and hard for that red flower but could find none, he’d wanted to bring some for Eren to plant in his garden. 

When he returns home the house is dark and Eren is not there. Exhausted, hungry and more than ready to sleep he’d collapsed into his chair and wheeled himself out into the garden. Where there still were no flowers. Levi knows the reason why Eren had not planted flowers. They aren’t as practical as the vegetables, the herbs, and he’d not wanted the flowers that he and Levi had planted to remain, even after Levi has died. A selfish child. Levi knows how much Eren loves flowers, to deprive him of that over something as stupid as the inevitable-

The front door is slammed shut and he hears Eren’s tireless pounding steps as he flings the back garden door open, the wire mesh and wood noisy against a chain fence, where squash is growing beyond. Eren runs to him, eyes frantic, then angry when he finally halts before Levi. A hand folded over his stomach as he pants for air. He’d seen the light in the garden from the street. He must have gone looking after Levi when it’d still been day out. Must have looked the whole town through, unable to find Levi-

All politeness leaves him.

“Idiot! Where have you been all this time? What if you had fallen? What if you had gotten lost? What if you never came home! What would I have done then?”

When Levi doesn’t reply immediately, Eren opens his mouth as if he may yell until the sun rises again but Levi speaks and obedient as always Eren listens.

“It’s you who’s the idiot. Of course I came home, who else is going to come to wake you up?”

Eren who liked to sleep in even on the brightest of days, who could sleep for hours on end despite his long sleep of before, who loved to nap, in a pile of blankets, before the hearth, upon the grass, on the couch after much reading, in Levi’s arms or with Levi in his arms, that’s right- if Levi is here no longer why should Eren wake?

Eren had not found Levi because he’d not been certain Levi was capable of going as far as he had. Levi wheels his chair around to show his futile efforts of today.

“Sorry. I could not bring you flowers.”

He’s thrown the green blanket Eren often gives him over his lap and poured out the seashells he’d cleaned in the sea before making his hobbled way back home. 

If Eren cannot have flowers then-

“It’s been a long time since we last visited the sea hasn’t it? Eren.”

Eren falls to his knees before him, pressing his face against Levi’s knees, grasping at the seashells in his lap before rising, his elbows then seashell full hands pressing into Levi’s thighs as he arches up hungrily to kiss Levi. The kiss is hot, wet, heavy, as Eren’s weight is against him Levi almost worries for a moment the chair will fall back over. He clutches at Eren’s hair, twisting it into his fingers, smoothing the locks back only after Eren has drawn back, his face flushed.

“Too long,” Eren replies.

It’s a few days before they make a visit to the beach, Eren is careful to put sunscreen on them both before they depart. Much of their visit is lying on a blanket on the sand beneath the shade of an umbrella though they wet their feet for a little while along the coast. Eren manages to catch some crabs and for dinner they have steamed crab and a salad with strawberries.

Summer ends and autumn comes, winter is colder than usual and Eren is warmer than usual.

By spring Levi has finally convinced Eren that this year Eren will plant some flowers.

It’s an order.

They go through the entire market but no flower seems to please Eren, much to Levi’s vexation.

He’d been told more than a dozen times he’s not allowed to leave the house on his own but it’d always been Levi giving Eren orders not the other way around, and the request goes unheeded once again.

This next time Levi searches for that red flower he has no such luck (again) and when he returns home having settled on a different flower he’s in much worse shape than the previous time. He’d expected Eren to yell at him like the last but this time Levi finally has his tears as Eren cries against his neck for what must be more than an hour after finding him collapsed in the garden with a pot of blue forget me nots previously clutched there. He doesn’t bother to call him an idiot again or warn him to not leave the house without him. Even though it is a scoundrel thing to do since he always does it when Eren must leave the house for some essential errand that he could not take Levi with him on.

But Eren finally has flowers to plant in his garden so Levi merely kisses the tears away. Feels how warm they are against his palms.

Seasons past, a few more years.

The only flower that blooms in their garden are these blue ones, a vast patch of it Eren has grown. Instead of rocks, lining around the patch is their collection of seashells.

They are sitting together amongst the flowers.

Sharing the green wool blanket, it covers the both of their laps as Eren tilts his head back and breathes in the cool night air. Levi picks a few of the flowers.

He settles on fashioning a crown but he’s off and it’s too big and not sturdy enough. He drapes the finished work about Eren’s neck who touches at it gently though already the crown is breaking without so much as that.

“I never did find you that flower.”

“The red one?”

“That’s right, ‘morning glory’ it’s called… I think…”

Levi’s look is almost sharp as Eren tries to cover his laugh.

“That one wouldn’t be very befitting sir. Besides, don’t you think we’ve seen enough of that red in the previous lifetime? Maybe that’s why we could not find it.”

Though not all morning glories are red-

“You thinking of that sort of shit?”

“Wasn’t it you who was being sentimental? That flower is for love meaningless to be sought. We will never find it.”

How bright are Eren’s eyes. Smiling.

He touches at the flowers about his neck though most of it has fallen away.

“Um, would you be interested in hearing the meaning of this flower sir? There’s a story for it.”

“Ne m'oubliez pas, what of them? It is as it’s called. But if you want to tell the story, tell it anyway.”

A person who loves to hear stories are like to love to tell them often times.

Eren clears his throat.

“Mmm, I think it went something like this? A knight was courting a goddess. He wished to give her a gift but could not choose the right flower so, he decided to pick her one of each flower! However, after what he’d picked he’d thought to be all the flowers, one single flower remained, it cried out-”

Eren is crying out as Levi pulls his ear, kicking would not have much effect in this position, nor were his legs up to the task.

“How could it be a flower was speaking? Wasn’t it about some dumbfuck knight who drowned? I doubt he was courting a goddess. You’ve gotten the lore mixed up with the lore from the world of before.”

Eren gives it a moment’s thought.

“That’s right! The goddess… that story was about roses wasn’t it you said? My apologies sir.”

Eren would have gone on to say he was surprised Levi remembered that much but he didn’t want his other ear to be pulled. He’s rubbing at his red ear as Levi says-

“Well? How does it end?”

Eren frowns at him. “What’s that? You want me to finish the story?”

“Don’t start anything you can’t finish. Brat.”

Eren’s whole face flushes red, to cool it down he falls back against the flowers, pressing a cheek to the cool earth, Levi follows suit, steadily and slower than Eren’s sudden plop and is forgiven as Eren smiles at him, they stretch out over the worrisome flowers. Looking over at another. Then the sky.

Eren glances to the flowers he grew at Levi’s urging. Some of them poke out from beneath his fingers where his hand lies against them.

“This flower… that’s right. A god made them. A god made all the flowers. He gave names to all of them, except this one. He overlooked it, poor thing. Even though it’d just been born, none had trampled it- god had forgotten about it but the flower had called out to the god- ‘Please! Bestow upon me a name! Forget me not!’ And so the forgetful god had named it as such so it may never be forgotten.”

“What about the knight?”

Eren looks over in surprise.

“There was no knight, this wasn’t the rose story right?”

“There wasn’t a knight in that story either.”

Eren’s expression is concerned and confused, Levi wonders if he should just tell him this flower has more than one story.  


Instead he too tells a story.

A story about a knight with no honor, who had no right to claim the life of his love and so that very same forgetful god, that had forgotten to name that flower had also forgotten what it was like to forgive. Burying, drowning the knight under the weight of his sins, the knight died, but before he died he picked flowers by the water to give to his love and those flowers had been forget me nots. 

“A foolish story of an even more foolish knight.”

Eren does not say a thing as he rises, moving to bend over Levi, his hands at either side of his head as he looks down on him, the night sky dark behind him, this is a small city but the stars do not shine bright because-

“Was his sin for being so foolish? God is cruel but I am no god. I will not forget you Corporal Levi. Even if another two thousand years pass. I will find you again. Do not think you cannot return to me. How am I to wake without you?”

Levi looks back at Eren, unwavering, unrelenting.

“I believe in you Eren. It was me who forgot everything. If- No, I am bound to forget again, but I am sure my memories will revive eventually, otherwise you’ll sleep for a whole damn millennium should I fail.”

Eren seems alarmed at the final prospect, he sits back slightly, clasping at a hand Levi holds up to him.

“Shall we return to the house now sir? It’s cold.”

Levi turns to look at him and sees him, somehow.

“What are you talking about Eren? It’s plenty warm out here.”

He grips Eren’s hand, the one Eren had bit into so many times in so many a desperate fight for their lives. That is the warmth he speaks of.

Eren swallows hard, if he cries anymore when Levi has not even wandered away from him the Corporal would be cross about that, and what would he do with such bruised shins?

“Then, shall we stay out here a bit more?”

“That’s right.”

“Is that an order?”

“Idiot. You never need an order to nap. Lie next to me.”

“Yes, Corporal Levi.”

Eren lies next to Levi, tucked within the arm that wraps around him. Levi turns his face to him and Eren can’t help but kiss him.

“Be sure to wake me up like that, the next time you see me sir.”

“Without fail. Eren.”

They go to sleep.

\--

It is the first time that Eren has ever woke first. The morning is cold and he is grateful it did not rain. After rising carefully with a stretch, he walks gently around Levi, as if he might wake him. He gets the wheel chair. He places Corporal Levi upon it. How odd it is still that he can pick the Corporal up in this form even now. Eren brushes any dirt from his hair and clothes, and washes his face with a soft cloth, folds that green blanket they often shared over Levi’s lap and picks every forget me not.

A stream of them trail after them, the only memory as Eren travels to the woods in the bare lit morning, dawn steadily creeping along the horizon, but sure to burst into the bright blue of day, a brighter blue than all the forget me nots.

He sets Levi down against a tree by the entrance of the woods as he folds up the wheelchair and hides it among some of the fallen trees deeper in. Returning for his Corporal, Eren picks him up in his arms again, carrying him into the woods.

Much has changed and much has remained the same.

Finally finding the ruins after hours of walking, Eren does not enter through the small space Levi had, instead he goes through the front, where wide doors remain. Walking, walking, walking carefully, though his steps do not ring out. What had been of the wall someone, people of an era after him had built this refuge against it. Why, he does not know. What remained of the wall is crumbled, from his awakening and time. Barely you could see of the rubble where he’d once slept. The moss and greenery that’d been uprooted has returned. But the flowers, of them are only the red morning glories.

“There they are sir.”

Eren tells Levi though he cannot answer.

Eren frowns that his body is so cold now, getting stiffer by the minute.

Crouching, ever gentle, Eren lies Levi against the flowers. He unfolds the rest of the blanket and drapes it over his Corporal so he may not be cold. What remains of the forget me nots he scatters all along the morning glories, neatly and precise. He reaches into his pocket, he’d brought the whitest, smoothest sea shell from their garden, he folds Levi’s fingers around it.

Clasping both his hands about Levi’s.

“I shall be off now sir. I will be certain to fulfill my duty to you. Until we meet again, please rest here Corporal Levi.”

Eren walks back to the entrance of the ruins, turning back to glance at Levi resting beneath the free skies, the blossoming flowers, green wool much the shade their mantles had been-

Eren stands there a long while.

Unable to bring himself to leave even as orange dusk falls.

Eren is only able to turn away, his gaze ebbing to look back upon Corporal Levi whom he must leave now, his steps facing outward, he should have been scolded for this dawdling- when dusk finally departs as he should have, couldn’t hours before-

He sharply turns back around and gives a salute, a strong pound of his fist against his heart.

Only then after does Eren turn away truly and out-

Into the night.

He runs.

He brings his hand up to his mouth and bites hard.


End file.
